The key to making money with
Google‘s Adsense is easy in theory, but requires some hard work and dedication:
- You either need lots of traffic by having a site that is narrowly focused on potentially popular keywords that haven’t been dominated by the big blogs, or
- Lesser-traffic but high-value keyword subject matter, such as certain retail goods. Cameras and shoes have been successes for bloggers seeking professional status.
To grow that traffic, you’ll need to make sure that you are creating quality content — not just slapping keywords onto a page — because you’ll want people to come back to your site and to tell their friends about your site. If people like the content, they’ll link to it from their Facebook pages and other places on the web. Think about what you’d like to read online and aim for that style of writing.
Be passionate about your subject matter so that your enthusiasm shines through and infects your readers.
Also, write or create subject matter that attracts links (“link bait”). Top ten lists always are popular as are new and unique creations such as the first creators of LOL cats, etc.
Use photographs with your blog posts since people love to skim online and a picture can focus attention in ways that paragraphs sometimes can’t. Another advantage to using pictures is that if you use the ALT tag, Google will index your photos in its directory. Just make sure that you have the rights to use whatever photos you are posting since you do not want to risk having Google yank your Adsense earnings when it gets a DMCA take-down request. You also don’t want to get sued for copyright violations.
Blogging isn’t always just words and pictures, but also includes some of the things that go on behind the scenes. If you use WordPress, you can find plug-ins that will create site maps and will do some search engine optimization (SEO) functions automatically. Other things that you should plan to do are: 1) Refreshing old content by rewriting it to make it new and useful again for readers who might have missed it the first time around. 2) Linking to content within your blog. 3) Testing links within your blog to make sure they all work since Google likes links that always work. Google Analytics will do this for you. 4) Making relevant comments on other blogs since community is where the power is, plus it can be helpful in exposing your blog to new readers.
You’ll also want to examine which ads make the most money for your blog and which ones don’t. If an generic ad for a certain site earns your site less money than the ad from another advertiser, you might want to block the lower revenue ad using the competitive ad filter. Read Google’s Adsense documentation to learn about the tools you can use to figure out how to get the ad information needed to add the URL information to the ad filter. You might want to check for lists of low paying advertisers as others might know which advertisers are best to block to increase revenue.
Test all the time to see what layouts work the best for ad revenue. Could smaller ads above the content be better? Or, could a big text box below content do the trick? Maybe link units can be the money maker? Could changing ad colors (blending or contrasting) increase profits? Does your site earn more money if the ads only show for single posts, rather than on the main page? Are you running too many ads and reducing your revenue potential? The only way to know is to test to see what works the best with your blog. Always check your Adsense statistics to see if you’re moving in the right direction.
They key to blogging is to have passion for your subject matter so that you can keep writing during those times when you aren’t making any money and when it seems nobody is reading your blog. If you’re passionate about your topic and write about subjects people want to read, you’re well on your way to making some money with Adsense.
